Holiday Wraps
Jan. 5th, 2010 10:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tsukinofaeriiFirst actual post of the year! I'm being a productive member of society! Okay, so the December calendar on my sidebar is bugging me. Hush! Huge thanks to everyone who sent me cards! ♥ Special love to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kijikun and stormseye for the extras that came with. (hugs tight) You all rock! I shall be purchasing a corkboard to display them all. :D
Wraps! I arrived safely home in the company of Mom and three pets, yays. Set handled the trip down much better than the trip up. I splurged and bought a dog carrier for them, and he was miserable but not messy-miserable. Mom and I chatted and got lost on the way down, luckily remembering enough geography to know which roads to take when we'd missed our turn by five miles. We had real food for supper (a stop a Ruby Tuesdays) and got in around 10-ish. Unfortunately, She Who Is Called Dragon hadn't left for her lair yet. (facepalm) Luckily, no one had a brilliant idea to make me sleep on my own couch, or there would have been War. We worked it out. Sunday was spent prepping for Monday, and Monday was spent wishing for coffee. Thus has gone my week.
I'm very tired lately. I blame my uterus, but I also blame that I haven't slept well since getting home. The Dragon has doggies with her, one of which is Sensitive (meaning I roll over and she starts barking) and all of which Eat Cats. This is my not amused face.
How is it fair that my cats have to stay back in the bedroom (with the lights off, because surely they don't mind being locked up all alone in the dark and it saves the cost of a tiny bedside lamp) while her dogs get the run of the house? Pardon me for my presumption, but if they were my dogs, I wouldn't expect my host—family or no—to put their pets away. I completely understand when you can't leave them at home, but it's not right to tell me that my pets are the problem and to keep them locked up, when its their home and those dogs are the ones doing the terrorizing. GRRRRAWR.
(breathes) But, cheery news, She Who Is Called Dragon left this morning, taking her dogs with her. I'll be able to have my home back, thank goodness, and my cats can come out of the bedroom. Huzzah!
Okiedoke. This holiday season, a gift from my boss was a gift card to Borders. (She knows me well. :D) I spent it on three books for the trip, and in the process of the trip I finished all three. Here are my thoughts:
♥ Soulless by Gail Carriger: Okay, I admit, I picked this because of the word "parasol". It's a word I don't see much, and it's a fun word. I wanted light, fluffy holiday reading to contrast trying to handle my father, and it delivered. The unexpected perspective changes make me cringe, but that's one of my pet peeves anyway, and the book carried me through in spite of the peeve. It's quirky and fun, and Alexia's mental processes are amazingly hilarious. Carriger does an excellent job of producing a "soulless" sort of quality in her without making her flat or unlovable. The plot was well laid out and tight knit; I can't think of any plot holes off the top of my head. Her minor characters were well-loved and individual, and I honestly bought into the romance. I'm looking forward to the sequel.
♥ The Mermaid's Madness by Jim C. Hines: I bought this by mistake. It's not labeled as a sequel, and I don't like buying sequels without having read the first one. Luckily, this was written in a way that the happenings of the first book didn't much matter in the second. I followed it easily, even though it means I've been spoiled for the first one now. The book starts a bit slow—I had trouble caring about the characters for the first quarter. That's probably because I was supposed to fall in love with them in the first. But the plot was fascinating, and I really love Hines' take on the Little Mermaid, not to mention the twists he put to Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. (Hint: Sleeping Beauty kicks serious ass, Cinderella has a sword and Snow White really likes sex.) Plus, and this is what I consider the crown jewel of the book, there's definitely lesbian text, as yet unresolved at the end of the book, but hinting that it will be resolved later. All in all, I want the first one.
♥ The Accidental Sorcerer by K.E. Mills: Of my three purchases, this is the weakest, and I've already spent money on the sequel. Gerald is sweet, pretty naive and a pretty solid character, all told, and Reg is a riot. The story and world carries this one more than the characters. I was seeing plot twists and turns coming, but never exactly the right shape of them until they were upon me. The progression flows nicely, and it doesn't feel like too much story or too little. My only major quibble would be the change in tone. It goes from light to srs bsns, but it's not sudden. I didn't even notice until the bodies were laid out. Worth picking up, definitely.
kijikun and stormseye for the extras that came with. (hugs tight) You all rock! I shall be purchasing a corkboard to display them all. :DWraps! I arrived safely home in the company of Mom and three pets, yays. Set handled the trip down much better than the trip up. I splurged and bought a dog carrier for them, and he was miserable but not messy-miserable. Mom and I chatted and got lost on the way down, luckily remembering enough geography to know which roads to take when we'd missed our turn by five miles. We had real food for supper (a stop a Ruby Tuesdays) and got in around 10-ish. Unfortunately, She Who Is Called Dragon hadn't left for her lair yet. (facepalm) Luckily, no one had a brilliant idea to make me sleep on my own couch, or there would have been War. We worked it out. Sunday was spent prepping for Monday, and Monday was spent wishing for coffee. Thus has gone my week.
I'm very tired lately. I blame my uterus, but I also blame that I haven't slept well since getting home. The Dragon has doggies with her, one of which is Sensitive (meaning I roll over and she starts barking) and all of which Eat Cats. This is my not amused face.
How is it fair that my cats have to stay back in the bedroom (with the lights off, because surely they don't mind being locked up all alone in the dark and it saves the cost of a tiny bedside lamp) while her dogs get the run of the house? Pardon me for my presumption, but if they were my dogs, I wouldn't expect my host—family or no—to put their pets away. I completely understand when you can't leave them at home, but it's not right to tell me that my pets are the problem and to keep them locked up, when its their home and those dogs are the ones doing the terrorizing. GRRRRAWR.
(breathes) But, cheery news, She Who Is Called Dragon left this morning, taking her dogs with her. I'll be able to have my home back, thank goodness, and my cats can come out of the bedroom. Huzzah!
Okiedoke. This holiday season, a gift from my boss was a gift card to Borders. (She knows me well. :D) I spent it on three books for the trip, and in the process of the trip I finished all three. Here are my thoughts:
♥ Soulless by Gail Carriger: Okay, I admit, I picked this because of the word "parasol". It's a word I don't see much, and it's a fun word. I wanted light, fluffy holiday reading to contrast trying to handle my father, and it delivered. The unexpected perspective changes make me cringe, but that's one of my pet peeves anyway, and the book carried me through in spite of the peeve. It's quirky and fun, and Alexia's mental processes are amazingly hilarious. Carriger does an excellent job of producing a "soulless" sort of quality in her without making her flat or unlovable. The plot was well laid out and tight knit; I can't think of any plot holes off the top of my head. Her minor characters were well-loved and individual, and I honestly bought into the romance. I'm looking forward to the sequel.
♥ The Mermaid's Madness by Jim C. Hines: I bought this by mistake. It's not labeled as a sequel, and I don't like buying sequels without having read the first one. Luckily, this was written in a way that the happenings of the first book didn't much matter in the second. I followed it easily, even though it means I've been spoiled for the first one now. The book starts a bit slow—I had trouble caring about the characters for the first quarter. That's probably because I was supposed to fall in love with them in the first. But the plot was fascinating, and I really love Hines' take on the Little Mermaid, not to mention the twists he put to Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. (Hint: Sleeping Beauty kicks serious ass, Cinderella has a sword and Snow White really likes sex.) Plus, and this is what I consider the crown jewel of the book, there's definitely lesbian text, as yet unresolved at the end of the book, but hinting that it will be resolved later. All in all, I want the first one.
♥ The Accidental Sorcerer by K.E. Mills: Of my three purchases, this is the weakest, and I've already spent money on the sequel. Gerald is sweet, pretty naive and a pretty solid character, all told, and Reg is a riot. The story and world carries this one more than the characters. I was seeing plot twists and turns coming, but never exactly the right shape of them until they were upon me. The progression flows nicely, and it doesn't feel like too much story or too little. My only major quibble would be the change in tone. It goes from light to srs bsns, but it's not sudden. I didn't even notice until the bodies were laid out. Worth picking up, definitely.
